The Angel's Dance
by athousandelegies
Summary: When Crowley awakens during his nineteenth-century snooze and decides to have a brief look around, he finds Aziraphale in an unlikely place. Featuring a disguised demon and an angel in drag.


"_Aziraphale had learned to gavotte in a discreet gentlemen's club in Portland Place, in the late 1880s, and while he had initially taken to it like a duck to merchant banking, after a while he had become quite good at it, and was quite put out when, some decades later, the gavotte went out of style for good." –_Good Omens

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**Author's Notes:**

A brief explanation of how this fic came to be might be in order... I thought to myself, it sure would be cute to have Azi and Crowley dancing together! So using handy-dandy Google to look up which "discreet gentlemen's club" messr.s Pratchett and Gaiman might be referring to in the above quote, this is what I found:

_"Another place of resort was the Hundred Guineas Club off Portland Place... [where] the well-to-do gay man was given a dreamlike play space for his double life. Members, guests, and staff rent-boys all dressed in drag and adopted women's names. For much of the evening, gentlemen sipped champagne, eyed the staff choices, and engaged in decorous hand-holding, dancing, and small talk. At 2am, the lights were doused. ...Until time was called at 6am, everyone paired off upstairs in gay oblivion."_

Ah. So _that's_ where Azi was spending his time while Crowley slumbered. My personal headcanon of Aziraphale follows the idea that "angels are sexless," so I don't think he was engaging in any of the upstairs activities. But that doesn't mean he couldn't enjoy the company the men frequenting such a club. Anyway, sorry for the ramble; enjoy!

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It was true that Crowley had spent the majority of the nineteenth century in blissful slumber. However, he had awoken briefly in 1887, just to see how the world was progressing without him. And he would never, ever, tell Aziraphale what happened when he did.

Crowley stretched his groggy limbs in ways impossible for the average human, looking like some bizarre cat-snake hybrid. After a few minutes he slithered out of bed and wished himself into a crisp black suit that would've been in the height of style a hundred years ago. He gave himself a once-over in the mirror and tsked. His dark hair was bedraggled and grown out past his shoulders, and he was sporting quite an impressive beard. He willed the facial hair into oblivion, and with a thought he brought his hair to the length and style he preferred. Satisfied at last, and throwing his reflection a rakish wink (_you dashing devil you)_ before leaving the room, he sauntered down the dusty stairs and out into the London twilight.

The streetlamps were the first things to catch his eye. They were bright as anything, bathing the dusky streets in a yellow glow…but they were _flameless_. Instead of fire, what appeared to be glass orbs were emitting the light. Fascinating. He grinned. Take a quick nap, catch just eighty or ninety years' worth of z's, and when you wake up, the humans have gone and changed everything.

He stopped a haughty-looking gentleman who was striding briskly past to ask about the magical lamps. After looking the demon up and down, taking in the archaic suit and outdated hairstyle, he almost shoved Crowley out of his way—but noticed the wicked gleam in his serpentine yellow eyes and thought better of it. "It's _electricity_. Maybe whatever backwater town you hail from didn't have any, but all the big cities have power now," he said, making sure every word he uttered was dripping in disdain.

Crowley let the stuck-up twat go with no worse than a sudden urge to go get shamefully drunk. Then he spent a few minutes studying the outfits of those passing by and subtly altered his own to match theirs. There, he was back up-to-date, easily the most fashionable figure on the street.

Now, to find the angel; he rather fancied a chat with him…

It took over a week of haunting libraries and asking around bookshops to find Aziraphale—London was much, much bigger than he'd remembered it. He felt a little overwhelmed, as a matter of fact, but he did his best to play it cool. He could ask the angel about all the factories and whatnot that had popped up all over the place when found him.

It was after a number of leads took him to small, out-of-the-way public house that Crowley finally met a bookish, absentminded sort of man who told him yes, he knew where Ezra Fell was currently taking up residence. Thus Crowley found himself one misty, drizzly evening knocking at a boarding house in a nicer area of London. A bustling, matronly older woman who positively radiated respectability answered the door.

"You're here for Mr. Fell, you say? He doesn't often get callers, poor thing," she said. "Well, I believe he's out, he usually doesn't get back till very late this day of the week. Shall I tell him you called?"

"No, no," Crowley said, disappointed. As he was turning to go, a youngish man who was just climbing up the front steps stopped him.

"Did you say you wanted to talk to Ezra?" he asked.

"Yeah, do you know him?"

"Sure, he lives in the room next to mine. I could tell you where he is…if you don't mean him any harm."

"Oh, no harm, I'm an old friend of his. Where is he?"

The young man gave him directions to a gentleman's club in Portland Place that the demon had never heard of, and Crowley set out on his way.

It had to be a mistake, was his first thought as he looked around the place. He'd slipped in through a side door, and now he stood in a shadowy corner, unobserved as he took everything in.

There wasn't a single female in the place…but a good number of skirts. The men who were relaxing at tables, chatting and eyeing one another and sipping champagne, were all wearing dresses. Aziraphale, here? Aziraphale, _in drag_? Surely not…but then he caught sight of the angel.

He was seated at a table with two other men who were surreptitiously holding hands, and they were all laughing with glasses of champagne in front of them. So, this is what the angel got up to in his free time.

Crowley scowled down at his suit, knowing he'd stand out like a sore thumb if he stepped out of the shadows in it, and willed it into a dress. He made sure it wasn't _too_ girly, no lace or jewelry or any of that rubbish. Then he moved till he was closer to the angel's table and listened in on the conversation.

"Come now, Ezra, that nice boy over there has been eyeing you all evening, why don't you invite him over? He's good-looking enough."

"You know I only come for the dancing, dear. Which should be starting soon, I hope. I wouldn't want to brag or anything, but I really have gotten quite good at the gavotte."

His two companions laughed heartily at this, and Crowley sniggered at the angel's peeved expression. "Well," Aziraphale sniffed, "I've stopped tripping over my skirt at every move, anyway."

"At any rate, you'd best find a dance partner," said the one.

"Ah, yes, I suppose I should," the angel said, and began to look around the room.

Crowley was in a mischievous mood—sleeping a century away left a demon itching to make up for lost time in the area of misdeeds—and his mind suddenly came up with a plan. He grabbed a spoon from a nearby table and, using it to see his reflection, he gave himself a makeover. His face became fuller, his cheekbones less pronounced; his hair paled until it was a light brown. And most importantly, he forced his eyes to lose their golden tint, and rounded out his pupils, completing the look with dark brown irises. He'd have to concentrate to keep them that way, but the angel would never recognize him now. He strolled over to Aziraphale's table.

"Mind if I sit here?" he asked politely.

"Not at all," said one of the angel's companions, and the other two nodded in agreement.

"I couldn't help overhearing your conversation, chaps." He turned to Aziraphale. "You're in need of a dance partner, yes?"

"Oh! Yes, I am; do you dance then?"

"Sure I do." Crowley had attended balls in the past while causing mischief in royal households; he'd never done gavotte but he was a fast learner, and quick on his feet. "Name's…Roland." He figured using the name he usually adopted, Anthony, would be too obvious; he looked nothing like himself and the angel didn't seem to recognize him, but he wanted to be careful.

He held out his hand. Aziraphale shook it. "Ezra."

The other two introduced themselves as Edward and Laurence. The four of them chatted for a while, and Crowley had a hell of a good time.

"You like to read, Ezra? What a coincidence, so do I! _Paradise Lost_ is my personal favorite."

"Oh, I simply love _Paradise Lost_!" the angel beamed. "Milton's an absolute genius…"

And then music was struck up, and they danced. Crowley struggled a bit at first, watching other pairings to see how the gavotte worked; but Aziraphale was so bad that in contrast Crowley actually looked like the better dancer of the two. He got the hang of it pretty quickly, and started giving the angel pointers.

"You're doing the third beat wrong, ange—Ezra. Look, you're skipping the part where you tap your right toe, like this, before the hop. Get it? There, looking good. Okay, let's try for some fancier moves now."

His original plan had been to reveal himself to Aziraphale at some point as they danced, but he found he was having too much fun. He didn't want to make the angel mad, and ruin the mood.

Time went quickly, and it was late when, finally, the dancing was over. Crowley took the angel by the hand and they sat down side by side at a table. Aziraphale seemed to have no intention of letting go of his hand, and Crowley found he didn't mind. It was intriguing, pretending to be a normal human in Aziraphale's company. The angel had always been very touchy-feely, dishing out hugs by the bushel—to everyone but Crowley. Apparently it was too un-angelic to hug a demon; the angel saved his embraces for humans only.

Laurence and Edward, Aziraphale's friends from earlier, joined them, and they all had more champagne and talked about various inane things. Crowley could tell the angel was pacing himself, drinking more slowly than usual so as not to bewilder the humans with his incredible tolerance levels. It was impossible for beings of angelic stock to get drunk that way, but Crowley figured he ought to go slowly too if he didn't want his cover blown. If he were to get tipsy, he'd forget to keep his eyes from reverting to their usual gold. The hardest part was keeping his aura invisible; occult (or, as Aziraphale would insist on being called, ethereal) beings could sense when other non-humans were nearby, but Crowley was keeping his aura firmly clamped down.

It was nearing two in the morning, and men had started slipping discreetly upstairs two-by-two, when Aziraphale extracted his hand from Crowley's and stood up. "I'm afraid I must be off," he said.

"Ezra, really!" Edward chided. He leaned over and murmured softly into Aziraphale's ear, but Crowley's sharp ears picked up his words, "Your friend here will think you were leading him on all evening for nothing."

Aziraphale blushed and looked apologetically at Crowley. "I'm sorry, Roland, I hope you don't mind…I did have a grand time dancing with you, of course, but I really don't…"

"Not to worry, ange—um, Ezra. I was just about to get going as well." He grinned. "I was just here to dance too. Really."

Aziraphale looked relieved. "Ah, wonderful. Care to walk out with me, then?"

There was a changing room, in which the angel shed his dress and replaced it with the same style of outfit he'd been wearing before Crowley had begun his nap at the beginning of the century. The demon smiled; Aziraphale never could keep up with changing trends.

Crowley pulled off the dress and, since the angel wasn't looking, simply wished on a suit. Together they slipped out into the cool night and walked down the near-deserted streets.

Crowley marveled some more at the electric streetlamps. "Just a few centuries ago, you could've been burned at the stake for creating flameless light. It's amazing what people come up with. Always inventing something new, you know?"

They chatted a bit, and then walked in companionable silence.

"So, Ezra. You have many friends?"

"Oh, well…not really. There's Laurence and Eddy from the club, and some others, and they're real dears of course. But, well, I can't explain what I mean, but I'm just too…different, from them, to get really close to them." He was quiet a moment.

"So, no friends? …None at all?"

"Not really." Aziraphale sighed. "I suppose that should make me feel terribly lonely." He laughed self-deprecatingly. "But I'm used to it."

Crowley couldn't have said why, but he felt a sudden twinge of irritation. "Really? No one, at all? Surely there must be _somebody_ you can, I dunno, relate to, and whine to, and, let's see…someone who never completely fades from your life, who's always there somehow or another. …Yeah?"

"No," Aziraphale said forlornly.

Crowley could have hit him. _Ssstupid_ angel.

Raindrops were beginning to fall, and there was a chill in the air. They were nearing Aziraphale's boarding house now, walking in silence. Suddenly, a look of surprise appeared on the angel's face. "Oh! I suppose I _do_ have one friend, Roland…it's funny, I never thought of him as that…but he is."

Crowley felt a warmth in his stomach and smiled. "Oh?"

"Yes. He's a real pain, he's ill-behaved and self-absorbed and he loves to get on my nerves, but…I think you'd like him. I haven't seen him in…oh, a very long while now. I do wonder where he's gotten to…" Aziraphale trailed off, thinking. "But, yes. I doubt he thinks of me as one, but he's the closest thing I have to a friend."

"Oh, well, who knows, maybe you're wrong. Maybe he cares for you more than you think."

Aziraphale smiled, gazing abstractedly past the raindrops and streetlights. "Perhaps."

They'd reached the boarding house. "This is where I live. Well, Roland, it was a pleasure to meet you."

Before his brain had registered what his body was doing, before he could stop himself, Crowley leaned forward and gently pressed his lips against the angel's forehead.

"You too, Ezra."

He strolled away as the rain grew heavier, making his way under the streetlights that the clever humans had invented while he'd slumbered, heading back to his flat to dream away another decade or so.

"Ssstupid angel," he murmured fondly.


End file.
